Bands to Watch: Taking Back Sunday

SOUND LIKE: A cross between Blink-182 (minus the poo fixation) and Fugazi (minus the sermonizing). The zippy, anthemic tunes on their 2002 debut, Tell All Your Friends, are as melodic as they are sarcastic (e.g., "You're So Last Summer"). Atop paint-peeling power chords and mosh-inducing rhythms, singers Adam Lazzara and John Nolan yelp barbed bons mots like "You're a touch overrated / You're a lush and I hate it."

A HIT WITH THE LADIES? The group's video for "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut From the Team)" recasts Fight Club as a battle between the sexes, with the ladies laying down a first-class ass-whupping. "The original idea was that everyone would be equally beaten up and bloody, but we didn't think we'd get away with that," says Lazzara. Guitarist Ed Reyes imagines the resultant headline: TAKING BACK SUNDAY: WE BEAT OUR WOMEN.

THE PERKS OF SUCCESS:Tell All Your Friends has become the fastest-selling album for the group's indie-punk label, Victory Records. Naturally, the band are considering renegotiating their contract. "They'll definitely have to give us a small country," Lazzara says. "And also a fluffer," adds Nolan, "so we don't have to masturbate anymore."